TRAVEL: 1 week in Mexico City

My sister and I went to Mexico City (CDMX, Ciudad de Mexico) for one week in March 2019! It was an amazing week in beautiful warm weather (but not too hot). We would highly highly recommend traveling to Mexico City because there is so much to do and so much to eat, all at a relatively cheap price! We had a ton of activities to fill a week, but you can also go for a 4 day weekend, or go for even longer.

First, I’m leaving some overall travel tips for CDMX, but feel free to scroll and skip to the day-to-day schedules!

Housing: we stayed at an AirBnB in the Historic Center for the whole week. The Historic Center is known to be more poor and perhaps more dangerous but we had friends stay there before us who said they did not feel unsafe at all, so we went for it because the prices are cheaper. We thought it was a great central location and also felt safe the whole time. If we were to go back, we would probably experience staying in Condesa too, which is a more affluent area.

Transport: Uber is very alive and very cheap in CDMX. A 30 minute ride is usually around $10 CAD, although this will surge around evening rush hour times. We only took a few Ubers (to and from airport, when the Metro was inconvenient, when it was flash raining) but otherwise we took public transit and we actually loved it. The Metro system is pretty good and costs 5 pesos aka 30 Canadian cents, so like, how can you not? We found that during the day there was a women’s only section which was blessed. It can get pretty sardine-like (+++ packed) but when it’s only female it actually feels quite comfortable haha.

Money: We mostly used cash everywhere because took public transit and ate on the street most of the time. We only used our credit cards for one super expensive meal (lol…). We brought 2500 pesos each and ended up taking out 400 pesos each additionally. When we went, 1 CAD was approximately 15 pesos.

DAY 1: This wasn’t really a day because we flew all day! We had a connecting flight to save on moneys so we got to CDMX at 10pm. We had a quick bite of tamalitos to eat at a cool restaurant beside our AirBnB then went to sleep!

DAY 2: We took this day to explore the Historic Center around where we lived. We walked up the street to the Palacio des Bellas Artes and the adjacent beautiful garden. CDMX is full of these beautiful, bountiful trees with purple flowers.

We ate some delicious street food throughout our walking, including these Dorilocos which are very common everywhere in CDMX. The name is pretty self explanatory: a bag of Doritos with lots of crazy toppings.

Then we walked further to La Lagunilla market. This super cool outdoor antique and trinket market is only open on Sundays. If only I lived there, I would’ve bought so many cool decor items.

Last stop for the day was the architecturally amazing Bibliotheca Vasconcelos. We roamed the stacks, pretended we could read Spanish, then took little naps hehe.

On the walk back to our AirBnB we grabbed more street food and also went to an actual sit-down restaurant for shrimp tacos. Tbh they weren’t even very good and more expensive – low-key/street spots are the way to go! The guac was great though.

We had a early night since we had an early start planned for the next day.

DAY 3: Teotihuacan pyramids! We went on a Monday which is a good day to go because all museums in the city are closed but this site is open. I also read don’t go to Teotihuacan on Sundays because it’s free for Mexico citizens and therefore pretty packed. A lot of people take tours to Teotihuacan but I would really recommend going on your own. It’s much cheaper and you can take your time and do whatever you want. You can also go really early to beat the crowds and take better photos, so win-win!

We Ubered to the Autobuses del Norte bus station around 6am, then took a 6:30 bus to Teotihuacan. The bus trip is around 1 hour long and costs 105 pesos round trip. We got to the site at 7:30am and bought our entry tickets for 75 pesos. The site technically opens at 9am, but I read online earlier that people have gone at 8am and they were able to get in. We pushed our luck for 7:30am and it was completely fine! It was great being able to get pictures and see the site with very little people. We were even early enough that the sunrise hot air balloons were still in the sky.

We spent the whole morning walking around the site – it’s very big! Then we had lunch at La Gruta, which is a restaurant in a cave! It’s pricier because of the location but it was an awesome experience and a nice cool, shaded break.

After lunch we walked back through the site to get to the buses and the entire site is much more packed later on in the day.

After getting back to the city, we bought some fresh fruit from Mercado San Juan (right beside our AirBnB) then relaxed a bit at home before going out to fill our stomachs. We had amazing vegan tacos at a street truck called Por Siempre Vegana (10/10 would recommend!!) and then finished off the experience at El Moro, a chain but perfect churreria.

DAY 4: We started our day off with some fresh fruit that we bought the day before. I always think I know/have eaten alot of fruit until I travel to new places and see things I’ve never seen before haha. Here we had mamey (papaya/persimmon/sweet potato mix), chikoo (honey/pear mix), Mexican cream guava, and grenadilla.

Then we took the Metro to Condesa and had a second breakfast at Tacos Hola (great veggie options as well as lots of meat).

We walked through the beautiful green spaces of Parc Mexico and Parc Espana and got a quick workout on the outdoor machines too – very fun!

Then we walked to the Condesa Tanguis outdoor market (only open on Tuesdays). It’s the best for fresh fruit and veggies. I loved walking around and seeing the abundance of fresh produce.

We spent the rest of the day at Chapultepec Park. It’s a huge park near Condesa and has tons of museums, sculptures, green space, and a lake. Very Central Park vibes. First we bought tickets to go up Chapultepec Hill. Atop the hill is the Chapultepec Castle and Mexico’s National History Museum. They don’t let any food or water in the castle/museum unfortunately so we had to finish our park snacks before going in. The castle was beautiful and the museum was interesting (even though we couldn’t read anything because there was no English blurbs). And there were great views of the city!

Afterwards we decided to go rowboating on the lake. At first it was struggles but then we were pros. Also, these super cute and stylish bright orange life jackets were mandatory.

When we got hungry we walked to Vikos, another vegan tacqueria (yum!) for a few tacos before tackling the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. Another museum with no English blurbs but still very cool! We spent 2.5 hours here but you can definitely spend more. Lots of Mexican culture and history.

When we finished at the museum mother nature was giving us a flash storm so we were planning on walking to dinner but ended up taking the bus instead. We’re pretty sure you can only pay for the bus via a reloadable tap card. We didn’t have one so we just paid the driver the fee in change (6 pesos) and he definitely kept the money for himself haha. We had dinner at La Casa de Tono which is a chain restaurant but with pretty good food and cheap prices. Their specialty is the pozole (mexican soup) and we got some sopas too.

DAY 5: In the morning we walked to the Zocalo (city square) which was very close to where we lived. The Zocalo is a very European-like square with many surrounding government buildings. The Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral is at the top of the square, and you can go in if you’re wearing appropriate attire (we couldn’t lol so we just looked from the door).

The Templo Mayor ancient ruin museum is right around the corner. You can see the ruins from the street so at first we were skeptical to pay the museum fee to walk through the ruins. But it turns out there’s a whole large indoor museum as well so in the end, it’s definitely worth it to pay and be able to walk through the ruins and explore the museum. There was English blurbs so we learned alot!

Afterwards we walked to La Ciudadela which is a very popular artisan craft market. We stopped by Marisqueria El K-Guamo‘s street stand on the way, which had the BEST octopus tostadas. I’m still thinking about it.

La Ciudadela is very fun to walk around. So many pretty colours and crafts. It’s also a great place for souvenirs. We didn’t buy anything though, except for some earrings that I wore to dinner (as you will see shortly).

Ok so our next stop was the most expensive thing we did but we love food experiences so it was so worth it for us. Somehow we were able to get last minute cancellation spots to the Omekase Taco Bar at Pujol. Pujol is one of the fanciest restaurants in CDMX and if there were Michelin Stars in CDMX, this place would definitely have one. The whole meal included 9 courses at the taco bar, 3 alcoholic drinks (which we consumed <5% of), and dessert on the outdoor terrace. It was such a fun experience and everything tasted so good. It’s too much to explain but I’ll just leave these photos here and make one special mention to the mole which gets older and older everyday and was 1831 days old when we ate it!!

After the meal we walked over an hour through the neighbourhood to arrive at Licoreria Limantour, a highly appraised bar. They have very fancy drinks designed after areas in CDMX, so it was a fun tasting experience. Overall, very gustatory evening.

DAY 6: We spent the day exploring Coyoacan, a very hip and cultural area of CDMX. Once we got off the Metro we stopped at a green space called Viveros de Coyoacan. It’s a big park that you can run/walk and exercise in. There was a flower/plant market beside it too so we spent some time exploring that.

Then we walked to the famous Casa Azul aka the Frida Kahlo Museum. We bought our tickets online before hand and were given a specific time to show up at the museum. But we still had to line up for a bit. This museum is alot more expensive than other CDMX museums (~ 16 CAD) and it’s much smaller too but it was well worth it! It was one of the best curated museums that I’ve ever been to. Frida’s story is so interesting and the museum showcased her life very well. There was also a temporary exhibit of her clothing/fashion when we went.

The Mercado Coyoacan is very close to the museum so we walked there and had more tostadas for lunch.

We also got a new fruit: zapote negro (black sapote), so we bought one and ate it in Jardin Centenario with the cool coyote fountain (coyoacan means place of coyotes). It tasted like a mix between persimmon and avocado!

We roamed around another market (surprise, surprise) Mercado Artesanal Mexicano then walked to relax in Jardin Japones which is an awesome Japanese inspired park.

For dinner I had a delicious squash blossom burrito on the street, then we went to Taqueria Orinoco and I watched Tina eat really good meat burritos. We had so many recommendations to come to this place and apparently the meat is 100. They also had a dessert taco which I most definitely ate.

DAY 7: We started off our last full day in CDMX at the UNAM University Campus. We took the Metro there and I really wanted to go to Espacio Escultorico to see cool sculptures but unfortunately it was closed! We couldn’t figure out why because they are usually open M-F 8:30-4 but then someone told us that International Women’s Day is a stat holiday in Mexico which is pretty cool. So instead, we walked about the Cultural Centre of the University and walked in some museums and libraries.

Then we Ubered to Xochimilco which is known as the Venice of Mexico. I read online to go to Embarcadero Nuevo Nativitas and NOT any other port because they can be super aggressive at the other ones. The trajineras are super colourful and fun. We bought a 1 hour boat ride down the canals. The price is per boat per hour so the more people you have the better deal. The advertised price is 500 pesos/boat/hour but luckily we were with a friend that speaks Spanish so we were able to get ours for 300 pesos only. Once you’re on the canals you can buy lots of food, drinks, and mariachi performances.

After the trajineras we walked to the Mercado de Xochimilco for more food, then went to try pulque at Pulqueria Temple of Diana. This was such a fun experience. Pulque is a fermented alcoholic drink made from agave sap and they blend it with many flavours to make a milkshake-like drink.

We took the Metro home to relax for an hour or so before heading out to the Lucha Libre. We heard this was a must-see while in CDMX. We bought our tickets at the ticket booth for 190 pesos each. The wrestling is very fake and theatrical but was fun nonetheless and can get very rowdy and loud.

And the last stop on our trip – we had to go back and get more churros of course (no pic because I was too busy eating).

DAY 8: We had to leave for the airport bright and early in the morning. Bye bye CDMX!

Thanks for reading! And thanks Tina for spending a week with me!! Love you poo.

Lizzy